10 Tips Every Award Entrant Needs Before They Start Writing

Every year, organisations with genuinely outstanding work fail to win awards. Not because their achievements fall short. Not because the judges were unfair. But because the entry did not communicate what the work actually delivered — clearly, specifically, and in the way judges need to see it.

Writing a winning business awards entry is a specific skill. It is not the same as writing a case study, a proposal, or a marketing document. It requires a particular kind of clarity about what you did, why it mattered, and what specifically changed as a result — presented in a way that a senior industry professional who has never heard of your organisation can follow, assess, and be genuinely convinced by.

After over a decade of running the International Brilliance Awards™ and reviewing thousands of entries across business, HR, internal communications, and marketing, we know exactly what separates the entries that win from the entries that do not.

Here are the tips that make the difference.

Tip 1 — Choose the Right Category Before You Write Anything

The most consequential decision in the entire award entry process is not how you write your entry. It is the category you choose to enter.

An outstanding entry in the wrong category will not win. An entry that would have been shortlisted in one category may not even be considered in another — not because the work is weaker, but because it is being assessed against the wrong criteria by judges looking for something different.

Before you write a single word, read every category description carefully — not just the ones that seem obviously relevant. Look for the category whose description most closely matches the specific nature of your work, the specific outcomes you achieved, and the specific audience your work was designed to serve.

Ask yourself honestly: if a judge read this category description and then read my entry, would they feel the entry belonged here? If there is any doubt, keep looking.

Practical tip: If you are genuinely uncertain between two categories, contact the awards team before you submit. A good awards programme will help you find the right home for your work. The International Brilliance Awards™ team is available at info@brillawards.com — and we would rather help you enter the right category than see outstanding work assessed in the wrong context.

Tip 2 — Audit Your Evidence Before You Start Writing

The single most common reason strong entries underperform is not poor writing. It is insufficient evidence.

Before you open the entry form, gather everything that supports what you are claiming. Quantitative data — engagement scores, retention rates, revenue figures, customer satisfaction scores, campaign reach, conversion rates, time-to-hire reductions, cost savings. Qualitative evidence — client testimonials, employee feedback, leadership quotes, independent endorsements, media coverage. Before and after comparisons that demonstrate clearly what changed. Timelines that show the scale and complexity of what was delivered.

The more specific your evidence, the stronger your entry. The difference between “employee engagement improved significantly” and “employee engagement increased by 24 points over 12 months, reducing attrition by 18 percent in a market where the industry average was rising” is the difference between an entry that makes a claim and an entry that proves one.

Gather more evidence than you think you need. You will not use all of it — but having it available means you can choose the most compelling data points rather than relying on whatever you can remember when you are writing under pressure.

This focus on core, verifiable outcomes is exactly what veteran judges prioritize when looking at a submission.

Jury Insight on Evidence:

"What usually separates the best entries is the ability to show real business impact. Not clicks, eyeballs or activity metrics but cost savings or revenue growth." — Andrew Burrell, Head of Portfolio Marketing, Nokia

Practical tip: Involve every team that contributed to the work in the evidence-gathering stage. Finance, operations, HR, marketing, customer success — whoever holds the data that proves the impact. Start this process before you start writing. The evidence-gathering stage is almost always more time-consuming than the writing itself.

Tip 3 — Write for the Judge — Not for Yourself

One of the most consistent mistakes in award writing is writing for an internal audience rather than an external one.

Inside any organisation, there is a shared language — assumptions, acronyms, and context that everyone inside understands but that means nothing to someone reading about your work for the first time. Judges are not inside your organisation. They do not share your assumptions. They do not know your internal terminology. And they are reading your entry alongside dozens of others, from organisations they also know nothing about.

The entry that is clearest and most accessible will always outperform one that assumes prior knowledge.

Beyond the language itself, the most costly version of this mistake is writing what you want to say rather than what the judges need to hear. Every section of your entry should be a direct response to what the criteria are asking — not a general account of what your organisation did.

To catch a judge’s attention immediately, the strategic intent must be clear from the very first page. If the entry is bogged down by internal corporate phrasing or lacks a clear objective, the core message is lost.

Jury Insight on Clarity of Objective: 

"If I can’t tell within the first two paragraphs what this campaign was actually trying to achieve, and for whom, I already know the strategic thinking wasn’t there. Great work starts with a specific, honest problem to solve. Vague objectives produce vague submissions and usually, vague results." — Jeanette Okwu, Founder and CEO, beyondINFLUENCE

Practical tip: After completing your draft, ask someone who was not involved in the work — ideally someone outside your organisation — to read it. Ask them to tell you what they understood your organisation to have done and what impact it had. If their summary matches your intentions, the entry is communicating clearly. If it does not, rewrite until it does.

Tip 4 — Structure Your Entry Around the Story

The strongest award entries do not answer questions in isolation — they tell a coherent story that takes the judge on a journey from the situation before the work began to the outcomes achieved and the lessons drawn.

Think of your entry in three acts:

Act One — The Context

What was the situation before you started? What challenge were you facing, what opportunity did you identify, or what need did you set out to address? Why did it matter — to the organisation, to the people inside it, or to the audience you were serving?

This section should be concise but specific. Judges need enough context to understand why the work was necessary — not a history of your organisation. Two or three focused paragraphs that establish the stakes clearly is more effective than a page of background.

Act Two — The Work.

What did you actually do? What thinking shaped your approach? What decisions did you make and why? What obstacles did you face and how did you navigate them?

This is the heart of your entry — the section where the quality of your thinking and execution becomes visible. Be specific. Be honest about what was difficult. Do not smooth over the complexity of what you delivered — judges respect organisations that demonstrate they understood the challenges they were working with.

Act Three — The Impact

What changed as a result of what you did? Be as specific and quantitative as possible. Connect the outcomes directly to the work — show the judges the line between what you did and what happened. Include both quantitative and qualitative evidence. And if the impact extended beyond the immediate metrics — if the work changed how the organisation thinks about something, or opened up possibilities that did not exist before — say so, specifically and honestly.

A masterpiece of engineering or a highly technical solution means very little to a jury if it is presented in a vacuum without this continuous narrative.

Jury Insight on Contextual Storytelling: 

"Many entrants underestimate the importance of storytelling and context. Even highly technical innovations need a clear narrative explaining the challenge, the reasoning behind the solution, and the broader significance of the work. Judges often review many technically strong submissions, so the entries that stand out are the ones that communicate their impact clearly and cohesively rather than assuming the technology speaks for itself." — Rajya Laxmi Yellajosyula, Senior AI Product Manager, Microsoft

Practical tip: Read your completed entry from beginning to end as a continuous narrative. Does it tell a clear, compelling story that builds from context through work to impact? Or does it feel like a series of disconnected answers to individual questions? If it is the latter, restructure until the narrative flows.

Tip 5 — Replace Every Vague Phrase With a Specific Fact

Corporate language is the enemy of a strong award entry. Phrases like “world-class,” “cutting-edge,” “innovative solution,” “best-in-class,” and “significant improvement” appear in thousands of entries every year. They say nothing specific. They prove nothing. And they signal to judges that the entry is substituting language for substance.

Go through your draft and highlight every vague phrase. Every “significant improvement.” Every “innovative approach.” Every “outstanding result.” Then replace each one with a specific, verifiable fact.

Not “significantly improved customer satisfaction” but “increased customer satisfaction scores from 67 to 89 percent over six months.”

Not “innovative approach to talent acquisition” but “reduced time-to-hire from 67 days to 31 days while increasing offer acceptance rate by 18 percent.”

Not “strong financial performance” but “delivered revenue growth of 34 percent against a target of 20 percent, exceeding budget by £2.3 million.”

The specificity is not just more convincing — it is more memorable. Judges read many entries. The specific facts stay with them. The vague claims do not. Over-complicating the text with industry buzzwords only dilutes the structural integrity of your case study.

Jury Insight on Overusing Buzzwords:

"If you have a strong entry, keep it simple, and let it do the talking for you: shoehorning in lots of buzzwords can distract or dilute the power of the entry itself." — Andrew Burrell, Head of Portfolio Marketing, Nokia

Practical tip: A useful test is to ask whether the sentence you have written could appear, unchanged, in any other organisation’s entry. If it could — if it is generic enough to apply to anyone — rewrite it until it could only apply to you.

Tip 6 — Answer the Question That Most Entries Leave Unanswered

After every claim you make in your entry, ask yourself one question: so what?

Not answering this question — not connecting every action to a specific, meaningful outcome — is one of the most consistent shortcomings in award entries. Entries describe what was done without explaining why it mattered. They present data without connecting it to consequences. They tell the story of the work without completing the story of its impact.

Every section of your entry should be able to answer the “so what?” question clearly and specifically:

We reduced employee attrition by 18 percent — so what? So we saved approximately £1.4 million in recruitment and onboarding costs in a single year, and retained institutional knowledge that would have taken years to rebuild.

We increased website conversion rates by 34 percent — so what? So we generated an additional £890,000 in direct revenue without increasing the marketing budget, demonstrating that the campaign delivered commercial impact, not just engagement metrics.

The “so what?” is the difference between an entry that describes and an entry that persuades. Judges are looking for entries that prove impact — not just report activity.

Practical tip: Read through your completed entry and mark every claim with a “so what?” Does your entry answer it? If not — go back and answer it specifically before you submit.

Tip 7 — Be Honest About What Was Difficult

Many award entries present a journey of uninterrupted success — a straightforward progression from challenge to solution to outcome, with no friction, no wrong turns, and no difficult decisions along the way.

Judges are senior professionals. They know that no significant project unfolds without challenges, compromises, and moments of genuine difficulty. An entry that acknowledges those difficulties — that explains what went wrong, how the team adapted, and what was learned — is significantly more credible than one that presents a journey of frictionless achievement.

Honesty about difficulty does not weaken your entry. It strengthens it. It demonstrates that the team behind the work had a genuine, clear-eyed understanding of what they were doing — which is exactly the quality that distinguishes outstanding professional work from ordinary work that happened to produce good results.

Jury Insight on Transparency and Context:

"They lead with the result and bury the context. A 40% engagement lift sounds great until you find out the benchmark was set against a campaign that ran during a crisis, for example. Success stories need to be honest about the starting conditions, the constraints, and the decisions made under pressure. That’s what makes a case study credible rather than just impressive-looking." — Jeanette Okwu, Founder and CEO, beyondINFLUENCE 

Practical tip: Include at least one specific example of a challenge you faced, how you navigated it, and what changed as a result of how you handled it. This section of your entry will often be the most memorable — because it is the section most entries do not include.

Tip 8 — Use the Word Count Strategically

Every category has a word count. Treat it as a discipline, not a constraint.

Entries that significantly exceed the word count signal that the entrant has not done the work of editing — that they have prioritised comprehensiveness over clarity. Entries that significantly underuse the word count signal that the entrant either does not have enough to say or has not invested the time needed to develop their thinking fully.

Aim to use between 90 and 100 percent of the available word count — but fill that space with content that directly serves the case you are making. Cut the weakest evidence. Tighten the language. Remove any section that does not add specific value to the argument.

Practical tip: If you are significantly under the word count, it is almost always a sign that you need more specific evidence. Go back to your evidence gathering. What specific data, testimonials, or outcome measurements are you not yet including? What aspects of the work have you described in general terms that you could describe more specifically?

Tip 9 — Use Supporting Materials Strategically

Most categories allow supporting materials alongside the written entry. Use this opportunity carefully.

Supporting materials should add evidence that the written entry cannot convey on its own — not repeat what you have already said in a different format. A campaign video that shows the work in action. A data visualisation that presents your outcomes more clearly than prose can. Photography from an event that communicates the scale and energy of what you delivered.

Do not submit materials for the sake of it. A well-chosen single piece of supporting evidence is more effective than a large volume of loosely relevant documents. Judges have limited time. Make it easy for them to find and understand the evidence that supports your case.

Practical tip: For each piece of supporting material you are considering, ask: does this add evidence that the written entry cannot convey? If the answer is no — leave it out.

Tip 10 — Review, Proofread, and Submit With Confidence

Before you submit your entry, review it against these questions:

• Does the entry tell a clear, coherent story from context through work to impact?
• Is every claim supported by specific, verifiable evidence?
• Have you been honest about challenges and how you navigated them?
• Is the language clear, specific, and free of corporate jargon?
• Have you used the word count effectively?
• Does the entry answer the judging criteria directly and completely?
• Have you answered the “so what?” for every significant claim?
• Would a senior professional in your field read this and immediately understand why the work was outstanding?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, go back and fix it before you submit. A strong entry submitted on time is always better than a weak one.

Then submit. And mark the finalist announcement date in your diary.

What Happens After Submission

Once your entry is submitted, it enters the independent blind judging process. All identifying details are removed before any judge reads your submission. Your entry is then assessed against published criteria by a panel of senior industry professionals who have no knowledge of which organisation submitted it.

At the International Brilliance Awards™, finalists for the 2027 programme will be announced on 23 November 2026. Winners are celebrated at the 13th Annual International Brilliance Awards™ ceremony on 28 January 2027 in London.

About the International Brilliance Awards™

Founded in 2014, the International Brilliance Awards™ recognise work defined by clear thinking, strong execution, and meaningful business impact across organisations worldwide.

The International Brilliance Awards™ serve as the flagship programme of the Brilliance Awards family, which includes Business Brilliance Awards, HR Brilliance Awards, Internal Communications (IC) Brilliance Awards, Marketing & PR Brilliance Awards, Sales & Revenue Brilliance Awards, and Sustainability & ESG Brilliance Awards.

Each programme focuses on a distinct area of organisational performance, while maintaining a consistent standard of evaluation through an independent, blind judging process.

Disclaimer: This article is intended as general educational guidance for organisations researching business awards programmes. It does not refer to any specific named or unnamed organisation. The characteristics described represent general industry phenomena observed over 13 years of operating in the recognition industry. The criteria provided are standard business due-diligence practices intended to empower entrants to make informed decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions: Tips for Crafting a Winning Award Entry

The International Brilliance Awards™ are part of the Brilliance Awards™ family, operated by BOC Global Events and Training Group. Company Registration No. 07660435. Registered in England and Wales. Celebrating excellence since 2014.